OPINION

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

DEQ wrestling with credibility issue

Commentary by
Karen Spears Zacharias

Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is suffering a credibility problem. Director Stephanie Hallock assumes that as long as the agency isn't in the headlines there will be little community resistance to the start-up of agent burns at Umatilla Chemical Depot.

If she bothered to read Thursday's headlines or listened to Oregon Public Broadcasting's replay of a hearing held Wednesday in Hermiston, Ms. Hallock knows there are problems brewing.

The question remains, what will be her response?

The problem put forth at the hearing is this: Washington Demilitarization Co., the multi-million corporation in charge of destroying the 3,716 tons of lethal chemical agents stored at the depot, keeps asking for permit modifications to the incineration complex. And DEQ keeps granting them. Hundreds of them by now.

The latest request has raised the hackles of the many folks. With good reason. There are four incinerators at the depot--two for liquids such as blister agent; one for metal parts; and one called the deactivation furnace. That's the furnace where rockets, some filled with gelled sarin, are burned, metal and agent together.

During the trial burns, the liquid incinerators met the emissions standards. But some of the emissions from the deactivation furnace were consistently above the state's standard.

So, why should we care? I mean, it's not like we suffer from the smog common to Los Angeles or even Portland.

Primarily because the emissions that exceeded DEQ's standards are known carcinogenics. We're already living downwind of Hanford, why further increase our risks for life-threatening illnesses?

Washington Demilitarization Co. would rather we didn't consider the health risks of bad emissions. In fact, Washington Demilitarization Co. would much rather we didn't fret our little heads about anything they do. They keep reminding us -- they are the experts in their field. Much like Halliburton in Iraq, nobody does it better. And, more importantly, they don't do it for profit. They are solely motivated by public safety.  By golly, we're fortunate to have a multi-million company that cares more for people than profit! They want to rid our community of all that deadly chemical agent as soon as possible.

Which is why they are pressuring DEQ for another permit modification change.

Sue Oliver of DEQ said the agency is left with little choice. They can either raise the emission standards. Or require that Washington Demilitarization Co. feed only one rocket an hour through the furnace. Highly unlikely. The company's under Congressional pressure to get rid of the stockpile as quickly as possible. They'd like to burn 40 rockets an hour.

Or DEQ can grant the request, allowing the company to take credit for the carbon filters on the incinerator's stack. The assumption being that the filters will block the bulk of the carcinogenic metals in the emissions. Oliver noted there's really no good means for testing the emissions from the stack once agent starts burning. It's not like going to the Columbia River and drawing a water sample. The emissions are calculated based upon the perimeters of the trial burns, which as already noted, the deactivation furnace failed.

All this puts DEQ between a rock and tank of blister agent. Some people claim that the community has been misled time and again by Washington Demilitarization Co., the Army and now, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, and Environmental Quality Commission. They maintain that when Henry Lorenzen was Chairman of the EQC, he promised that all the emissions standards would be met prior to any carbon filters. Lorenzen's commitment meant the air quality out of the incinerators' stacks would be as clean as possible.

Oliver says she has no record of any such agreement.

"I know Henry thinks he made that promise and maybe he did, but I can't find it in the transcripts."

Oliver denies that granting the permit modification equates to reneging on the state's own standards.

"It's simply a policy change. Not a change in emission standards," Oliver said.  

Which leads us right back to the question of DEQ's credibility problem and how Director Stephanie Hallock plans to address it.

Ms. Hallock?

Karen Spears Zacharias can be reached via e-mail at <http://www.heromama.org/>www.heromama.org or by phone at 541.379.8572